The
amendment to the Wildlife Act, New Zealand’s
foundational wildlife protection law, was passed under
urgency today and allows the Director-General of
Conservation to grant companies permission to kill kiwi and
other native wildlife if they get in the way of projects
like roads, mines or dams.
Greenpeace says it’s the
latest escalation in the Luxon Government’s war
on nature and is calling for the immediate repeal of the
amendment and for the Government to strengthen, not weaken,
protections for the country’s endangered
wildlife.
“This will go down in history as the moment
the New Zealand Government decided that roads and coal mines
needed protection from skinks and kiwi, instead of the other
way around,” says Greenpeace spokesperson Gen
Toop.
“We’re talking about our national icon – the
kiwi – being put on the chopping block so a company can
build a road faster. That is not who we are as a
country.”
“We are a country revered
internationally for bringing species like the kākāpō back
from the brink of extinction. But we’re about to go from
revered to reviled for making a law explicitly allowing big
business to kill endangered wildlife for profit,” says
Toop.
All three stages of the Bill were
heard under urgency this morning, with Greenpeace likening
the move to Trumpian style politics.
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“Legalising
killing kiwi is Trumpian style environmental vandalism. The
Luxon Government clearly knows how deeply unpopular this is.
It’s why they have rushed it through parliament under
urgency with no chance for public input or scrutiny,” says
Toop.
According to the latest Environment Aotearoa
report, nearly 80% of the country’s native birds are
threatened with extinction or at risk of becoming
threatened, along with 94% of indigenous reptiles. There’s
only one native frog left out of 14 that is not threatened
with extinction.
“Luxon’s Government just signed a
death warrant for native wildlife already on the brink of
extinction. And once they’re gone, they’re gone for
good,” says Toop.
“This Government have
been waging a war on nature since day one. They’ve
steamrolled environmental protections with the fast track
approvals act, they’re trying to reverse the oil and gas
ban, they plan to dismantle the RMA, and now they have
literally legalised killing kiwi.”
The
law change comes after a landmark High Court decision in the
case of the Environmental Law Initiative v The
Director-General of the Department of Conservation (DOC) and
others. The case challenged DOC’s decision to grant Waka
Kotahi permission to kill wildlife during construction of
the Mt Messenger Bypass in Taranaki.
The Judge ruled
that the permit was unlawful, upending years of DOC’s
practice of granting permits which authorised the killing of
wildlife under the Wildlife
Act.
